FTC Green Guides

Make sure your green marketing claims comply with the revised FTC guidelines. 

FTC Green Guides

Sustainability Consortium

Originally funded by Walmart, but now supported by a broad coalition of retailers and manufacturers, the Sustainability Consortium seeks to "drive scientific research and the development of standards and IT tools, through a collaborative process, [and] enhance the ability to understand and address the environmental, social, and economic implications of products." They have an ambitious agenda and are doing interesting work.

See what the Sustainability Consortium is all about.

EPA's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator

This is a handy calculator for generating the GHG data for various energy inputs, say 100 gallons of gasoline, 50 passenger cars, or 250 KW of electricity.

For instance the results of 100 gallons of gas burned is the equivalent of:

• CO₂ emissions from 2.1 barrels of oil consumed,
• Carbon sequestered annually by 0.19 acres of pine or fir forests,
• CO₂ emissions from burning 0.005 railcars’ worth of coal,
• Greenhouse gas emissions avoided by recycling 0.31 tons of waste instead of sending it to the landfill.

And the list goes on...you get the idea.

EPA's GHG Equivilency Tool

Economic Input/Output LCA

This is a quick and dirty LCA tool for calculating the emissions hot spots for a general category of products, say small appliances or footware. Created by CarnegieMellon, with a vast data base behind it, it uses the cost of the goods produced to generate a footprint based on averages. In contrast to a full LCA, which depends on specific material and location information to calculate exact LCA's, the results of the EIO-LCA are generic at best. Despite being a bit clumsy, this tool does a fairly good job of delivering basic information for identifying product life cycle hot spots.

Some tips for using it:

• Choose the correct model- purchaser dollars or producer dollars.
• If your exact product does not turn up in the search, try the drop down menus for categories and sub categories.
• Make sure you have checked the appropriate "category of results"- i.e. GHG, Water, etc.
• If you want to see the full spectrum of impact sectors you can download the complete data.
• If you want to see the data in percentages rather than metric tons, click the view graph button.

Here is the example for footwear

Try out CarnegieMellon's EIO-LCA tool

Sustainable Minds

Sustainable Minds is a comprehensive and standardized system that allows you to credibly estimate, evaluate, compare and track the life cycle environmental and human health performance of products – in the earliest stages of design. Easy to understand and use, and delivered as an on-demand, Web-based service, it is affordable for both small and large organizations.

Walmart's Sustainability Index

Learn more about Walmart's supplier sustainability initiatives and how you can be a better vendor:

Step 1: Supplier Sustainability Assessment

Step 2: Lifecycle Analysis Database

Step 3: A Simple Tool for Customers

Read more at Walmart.com

BOMcheck it!

BOMcheck allows suppliers and OEMs to easily share data required by REACH, RoHS, etc. Instead of multiple forms and declaration there is:

• one list of restricted and declareable substances for regulatory compliance (REACH, RoHS, Batteries, Packaging etc.)
• one tool to provide full materials declaration
• one web database system to reduce costs for suppliers and improve data quality

Find out more at BOMcheck.net

Download the User Guide for Suppliers and Manufacturers

GreenPeace's Plastics Pyramid

Greenpeace has developed a pyramid of plastics to assist those making material selection, to avoid PVC use. The guidance focuses on the toxic characteristics of the potential alternative materials. It provides a qualitative ranking based on environmental and health problems of PVC, addressing the production, additives, product emissions during use, disposal and recycling.

Read more about Greenpeace's PVC Alternatives Database

Check out some of their links

Know your plastic PVC alternatives

This 1999 University of Massachusetts report on PVC alternatives has some good, basic information on plastic additives as well as options for specifying alternatives to PVC.

All plastics, including bio-based plastics, require the use of additives to aid processing, enhance material properties (reinforce), reduce material costs (fillers) and impart specific characteristics such as stability (heat and light), flexibility, flame resistance, provide color and aesthetics, etc.  Because of its brittle nature and heat sensitivity, PVC by far uses the greatest amount of additives of any commercial resin. 

When plastics are used, there is always a possibility that incorporated additives may migrate in small amounts to product surfaces, and into the surrounding media. Thus migration may lead to some human exposure to additives. 

A Review of the Availability of Plastic Substitutes for Soft PVC in Toys

BioPlastics Guidelines

 

Not all bioplastics are created equal. If grown with GMOs, mixed with fossil fuels, or tossed in a landfill bioplastics can lose their sustainability advantage. See the Plastics Scorecard for more info on the best plastics to use.

The Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative has a set of guidelines for making sure the bioplastic you specify will generate the maximum green benefits. Here is an exerpt.

2 c) Avoid problematic blends and additives and encourage recycling

i) Avoid blends with fossil-fuel-derived plastics. It is recognized that the development of durable goods that are entirely compostable and made without blends is a challenge that may require blends at first and will improve over time. It is also recognized that some durable applications may be better suited to recycling than composting. Particularly avoid blending with virgin or recycled non-preferred fossil-fuel-based plastic (including PVC, PS, ABS, PC, and PU). Blends should be labeled clearly, identifying the blended materials and the percent biobased.

4 b) Design product for recycling or composting

i) Design for minimum number of different material types. For multi-component products, design for quick disassembly and positive identification of component materials for recycling or composting. Avoid barrier materials that interfere with composting or recycling.
ii) Design for handling by small scale, locally managed composting and recycling systems. Design product and labeling that facilitates easy identification and sorting by the consumer. Bottle applications should be designed and labeled to facilitate easy sorting at materials recovery facilities.
iii) Certain products designed for long-term durability may not be able to be made compatible with composting programs. Landfilling and incineration are the least desirable end-of-life options as both will result in loss of the feedstock resources. Incineration (and landfilling in case of fire) will result in generation of particulate and — depending upon additives and conditions of burn — other harmful emissions.

Read the full Guidelines for Sustainable Bioplastics Version 1.0 - May 2009

Check out the section by section guidelines listing at SBC

Or just read more about biomaterials at SBC

Green Screen for Safer Chemicals

The Green Screen for Safer Chemicals is a chemical screening method to help move our society quickly and effectively toward the use of greener and safer chemicals. The Green Screen is the first open source tool to identify substances that are inherently less hazardous for humans and the environment.

Read about it at Clean Production Action

Clean Production Action's Plastic Scorecard

The Scorecard’s design is guided by three core principles: Sustainable Feedstocks, Green Chemistry and Closed Loop Systems....Based in life cycle thinking, the Scorecard evaluates and categorizes plastic products based on environmental benchmarks for 1) feedstock production, 2) chemical and plastics manufacturing, 3) use and 4) end of life....

The most environmentally preferred plastic products are safer to humans and the environment across their entire life cycle: from the growing or extracting of raw materials to manufacturing the plastics to using the plastic products to managing them at the end of their useful life.

The Plastics Scorecard grades plastic materials from Grade F to Grade A+ depending on their life cycle performance.

See the beta score cards for:

Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) (.pdf)

Polylactic Acid (PLA) (.pdf)

Polypropylene (PP) (.pdf)

Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) (.pdf)

EcoIndex

The Eco Index is a ground-breaking environmental assessment tool designed to advance sustainability practices within the outdoor industry. It provides companies throughout the supply chain a way to benchmark and measure their environmental footprint, allowing them to identify areas for improvement and make informed sourcing and product life cycle decisions.

EcoIndex.org

ISO 14000 and 14001

The ISO 14000 family addresses various aspects of environmental management. The very first two standards, ISO 14001:2004 and ISO 14004:2004 deal with environmental management systems (EMS). ISO 14001:2004 provides the requirements for an EMS and ISO 14004:2004 gives general EMS guidelines.

The other standards and guidelines in the family address specific environmental aspects, including: labeling, performance evaluation, life cycle analysis, communication and auditing.

Read more about the standards at ISO's website